National Underwriter Touts Astonish Results as Insurance Marketing Game-Changer

By Scott Brazdo, Vice President of Marketing at Astonish Results

British historian Arnold Toynbee has a famous quote that goes, "The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play."

Recently, National Underwriter invited a number of insurance agencies down to the Summit Business Media, New York City Times Square office for a series of interviews about their relationship with Astonish Results. The article, "Astonish Shakes Up Agency Marketing With Aggressive, Web-Centric Approach," takes a long look at how Astonish Results is using social media and culture/attitude change to help agencies fall in love with their businesses again.

The article highlights two key points of the Astonish Results system that are helping to redefine insurance agency culture and processes. Historically, a service-oriented mentality governed agency life, but Astonish Results CEO Adam DeGraide contests that every service encounter is also a sales opportunity. This is the first concept every agency employee must embrace.

Summit Business Media technology columnist Rick Gilman, author of the article, describes the second defining Astonish point: "By implementing the right technology and embedding social media as a key touch point for clients, agents will not only grow their book of business with a major influx of new prospects, but improve retention levels with existing accounts as well."

While we're excited to see Astonish reflected in a positive light by the media, we're more proud of the things our Astonish Results Agency partners had to say. Each insurance agency found Astonish through different avenues and for different reasons, but the insurance marketing results by the numbers are very similar. A few highlights from the article:

• Since Rex Caton's installation of the Astonish tools, Caton-Hosey's personal lines department has grown by 10 percent.
• Mr. Petersen (CEO, Encharter Insurance) explained that until Astonish got involved, they were doing about 70-to-80 new deals each month, and now he explains that "I'm looking at 150 new deals this month, and it's not going to stop there. We're growing 6-to-7 percent currently and expect it to improve upon that."
• As a result of Astonish's efforts, search engine optimization (SEO) numbers have pushed Insurance Solutions to the top of the list when anyone is searching for insurance in Mission Viejo, California. Indeed, Mr. Alessandra reported a 1,700 percent increase in web traffic since implementing the Astonish system.

While statistics are a great indicator of success, just as important as the actual growth numbers are the culture and attitude changes that are happening across the board with the agencies interviewed and the majority of Astonish Results agency partners in general. When selling insurance is fun, it's a whole lot more profitable. And when producers, CSRs, and even receptionists are coming to the agency feeling as though they're helping someone, it makes productivity that much higher.

We're grateful to National Underwriter for writing this article, and to our insurance agency partners for using the insurance marketing tools and advice we provide to grow their agencies. The industry is literally changing before our eyes and we're happy to lead the "shake-up" with our aggressive, web-centric, fun-based approach.

Call us today at 1.888.899.1936 to speak with a dedicated Astonish Results representative that can schedule a tour of our digital marketing system for you, or click here to sign up for a FREE virtual presentation today!